Boston mom gives birth to 14.5-pound baby, biggest of the year in Mass.

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Carisa Rusack tipped the scales at 14.5 pounds; she may be the biggest of the year in Massachusetts. (WCB-TV)

Caroline Rusack of Boston, Mass., knew she was having a big baby. Her first child tipped the scales at 10.5 pounds and doctors told her to expect a large bundle of love. But nothing could have prepared her for 14.5 pounds.

“I heard the weight and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ It validated me because I was in a lot of pain when I was pregnant, so to hear the size, it made sense,” Caroline Rusack told WCVB-TV.

Father Bryan Rusack was equally surprised. “When she came out at 14 and a half pounds, I couldn’t believe it,” Bryan told WCVB-TV. “I took a picture of the scale just to document it because I couldn’t believe how big she was. And long too — 22 inches is long. That’s what we like long and big. That’s what I am,” he said.

Born on April 22, Earth Day, Carisa Rusack is the second-heaviest baby ever born at Massachusetts General Hospital in 12 years. At the typical size of a 6-month-old, Carisa is likely the biggest of the year in Massachusetts.

Carisa was delivered via Cesarean section. Neither of the parents have diabetes.

Fifteen pounds is big, but Carisa Rusack, is far from being one of the biggest. A mother birthed a 19-pound baby in Indonesia in 2009 and a Russian baby was born in 2007 weighing a hefty 17 pounds. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the heaviest was a boy weighing 22.5 pounds, born in Aversa, Italy, in September 1955. (All I can say is ouch!)

Last year, all over the world, there were lots of big babies tipping the scales—a 13.5-pound baby girl in Germany; a 13-pound, 11 ounce baby in Spain; and a 15-pound, 7-ounce baby named George King in Britain. At birth George was wearing 6-month-old clothing.

Newborns are usually about 7 pounds and double their weight within 5 or 6 months.

Are babies getting bigger? “Overall, there’s been a 15 percent to 25 percent increase in babies weighing 8 pounds, 13 ounces or more (or 4,000 grams, the weight where a baby is considered oversized) in the past two to three decades in developed countries, according to a February report in the medical journal The Lancet,” ABC News reports.

What’s more, a Danish study released in the Journal of Pediatrics in 2002 found that the number of babies weighing over 8.8 pounds at birth increased in Denmark in the 1990s to about 20 percent of newborns from 16 percent. Why the increase? Researchers found the reasons are both good and bad.

Good: In the review of 24,000 deliveries, researchers discovered that declines in smoking, alcohol consumption and caffeine use during pregnancy could be playing a role in the increase.

Bad: Big women deliver big babies and obesity is on the rise across the developed world.

Neutral: Women who had two or more previous children and women with higher levels of education were more likely to have big babies. Boys were about twice as likely as girls to be extra large.

“Among the risk factors identified in our study, high maternal pre-pregnancy weight seems to be the most obvious to try to modify,” the study concluded. A 2002 study conducted in Canada, where newborn weights are increasing, found similar results.

Is there anything wrong with a big babe? Well, it’s definitely better for babies to be large than small and many moms will tell you that big babies sleep better–but newborns over 9 pounds face health issues, including complications in delivery and higher risk of adult obesity or diabetes.